Monday, February 20, 2012

Freed from Painting Purgatory


The doldrums of painting have come to an end here at Mik's Minis. The above trio of figs have suffered and languished in a seeming perpetual state of incompleteness for far too long. With a new HUD now active I had to clear off the incomplete stuff.

On the left is a Zombpoc survivor that I first started back in October. He was close to finished, but still needed lots of attention in some key areas. In the middle is a Deathwatch trooper painted as a prize giveaway over at the Minions podcast. This one is a good example of a fig lying at the bottom of a bits box with seemingly no future. Finally on the right is a classic Eldar Harlequin that has finally been finished for Tristan over at GW Pertinent. He's got a neat project creating a Harlequin-based Spire Brat gang for Necromunda built entirely of reader-donated models. I went with a darker, Death Jester style that will hopefully contrast nicely with the rest of the gang.


One weakness that cropped up after not painting for so long was crispness and neatness. I went back and tweaked this fig a little more after I took these photos because there was a lot I missed with my first once-over, especially with the backpack. I like this model because he's a Librarian with a large Force Sword and a big, honking Power Fist. Plus, in the world of 40k, characters that don't wear helmets with their power armor amuse me.


Another weakness were eyes, which were never my strongest anyway. I tried here a couple of times before I just said, "That's good enough." I was hesitant to paint the ejection port on the shotgun, since the sculptor obviously couldn't be bothered with it. Ithaca does make such a bottom ejecting shotgun mind you, but it's not the most common so I painted a black rectangle on it after all. I like the way I did his civvies as well.


Finally are some close-ups of Tristan's soon-to-be Spire Brat ganger. It's a neat idea for a gang and honestly one I might have to steal if we ever get back into Necromunda. For the record, the white striping on the leg absolutely killed me, haha. Way back when I had duplicates of this model and for some reason I cut the mohawk off of this one to make it more skeletal. I just hope it holds its own among such excellent company.

So there you have it, these three were in various states of completion and I really did need to finish them off before moving on. Mind you, there was a lot of stuff not even started yet, but that just got shelved, boxed, and squirreled away for another (much later) day. I learned my painting skills were rustier than I could've imagined, so it seems some catching up is in order.

Edit: I know, originally queued for this afternoon, I had to bump it up some to accommodate another post elsewhere. Wheels within wheels!

14 comments:

  1. Dude he looks awesome! The striping may have killed you but it looks excellent, cheers!!

    Any chance of a pic of the DW model Andy painted?

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    1. Thanks Tristan, of course going to someone else I'm extra critical. I've got plenty of my own figs that I can overlook little screw-ups here and there!

      As for the Deathwatch model, he's posted as of now over at the Minions blog. That's why i had to bump this post up so I could link to it from there.

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  2. Thanks! I like him too, especially his licensed collegiate wear! Kind of makes me wish we did more Zombpoc gaming that is so hot right now.

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  3. Haha, I was just coming back to say "nevermind, I spotted the update over there!"

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    1. Hey! There's an update over there!

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  4. Looks like at least Tennessee is ready for the Zombie Apocalypse! Nice work on all the minis but that hat really cracks me up.

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  5. Good work! The shotgun guy is really cool! ;-)

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    1. Thanks Mats, he seems to be a crowd favorite. I was going to link to his cousin over at my buddy's blog but it doesn't seem Andy has a pic of his version up.

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  6. Nice Harlequin Mik- he'll be in good company!

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    1. Thanks Paul, I dunno though, there's some tight paintjob company to be in!

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  7. Wow, that ejector jibe must have been eating at you all this time, huh? :-)

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